


Ginni and the Knife

by Teawithmagician



Series: Brave New But Boringly Old World [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Criminal Drama, Domestic Violence, Drama, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen Work, Het, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:26:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6104860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hit Ginni, and Ginni hit the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ginni and the Knife

He hit Ginni, and Ginni hit the floor. “C'mere, bitch,” he roared, grabbing her hair. Ginni tried to get up when he hammered her forehead on the corner of the table.

“I'm dead,” thought Ginni. He had never beaten her that hard. 

She picked up the bread knife fallen on the floor. Her head went round, jingle-bells were ringing in her ears all the way from the left to the right.

“Wanna hit me? Wanna hit me?” he grabbed her hair, what was left of their golden splendor, and pulled it back, making her raise her face. “You will ne'er have the guts to hit me, slut.”

He spat her in the face. His sticky, thick spittle got into her black eye. And when his spittle splashed her eye, she felt an electric impulse. He made her forget how to hate, and she hated for that. 

Ginni jerked her hand up, sinking the knife under his ribs. That his look, “honey, what's the knife doing in my liver?” Black blood was pouring from his mouth when he tried to reach out to Ginni once again.

Ginni crawled into the far corner. He made a step, squeezing the handle of the knife stuck out from his body, made a step more, growling – and fell down. The knife punched through his body with a flop, pointy metal piercing the dark green shirt.

Ginni sat in the corner, huffing like a dog. The black eye didn't seem to open, and eye that saw him dead hesitated. Ginni rubbed her neck meekly, looking at the body of her husband, lying in the spreading puddle of blood. 

Ginni washed her hands in the sink. She brought the cigarettes from the room, getting around her husband's body. She picked up the receiver, trying to smoke a cigarette with the red lighter ran out of gas, and said the number. 

Membrane absorbed the code. It ran the word through the old wires, spitting out the white noise and sounds of a mechanic cough. Ginni wondered if the word had changed, clenching the receiver so hard her knuckles went pale.

When Ginni heard Bo's voice, she dropped the receiver. Had picked it up, she said, “It's me, Bo. I need you here, I really need you here.”

“Isn't it too late for a call? Your husband will disapprove of you talking to the men he doesn't even know of in the nights.” Bo said. He must be lying in the bath right now, the sound echoed in the manner it did when there was water around.

Where did he get all this water? She didn't want to know.

“My husband is safe and sound as the mold on miner's bones,” Ginni made a drag from the cigarette, biting the filter. “He wants you here to have and drink and to talk, he's found you a real job.” She knew the conversation might have been recorded and didn't talk much.

“That doesn't work like that. You didn't want to deal with me, you didn't want to have with me anything – any-fucking-thing – in common” Bo reminded. Among all things, the two he had was really good – his teeth and his memory.

“I was there for you when you needed me. I ask you to be here for me.” Ginni swallowed with effort. Her neck ached from outside from choking. “We made shifts together. You were my partner.”

“I was. What do you think it matters to me under the circumstances?”

“Bo...”

“I owe you nothing.” 

“Yes, you do. But we were friends. I would do this for you if you asked me to. Do this for me,” Ginni said. 

She knew no other way to talk to Bo, and she was not going to beg. There was that thing between Bo and Ginni that meant she is no begging, he ought to have known that. If he is not coming, she would do it on his own. The fact is, she needed him no matter what she could or couldn't do.

“I'll be at your block when I'm free.” Bo's answer was short. Yes, he did remember.

When Ginni heard the knocking on the door, she opened it with the dead man's Identity Card she took from the secret place in her husband's room. That son of a bitch never tried to make a civil ID for Ginni, to register her in the apartment and to get her the locker card of her own.

He wouldn't do it. If Ginni got ID and locker card, she would be an independent woman. Independent Ginni was on of the many things he couldn't stand.

“Come in,” Ginni said. Bo stood in the doorway, his shirt buttoned to the collar, his hands in the pockets. Wrapped in his jacket, under his arm was a jar of moving substance that looked like a moldy jelly.

“You've taken the tunnel mold,” Ginni shuddered, while Bo quickly slipped in, closing the door. “Why the hell have you taken the tunnel mold?!”

“Calm down,” Bo said, giving the jar to Ginni. She would let it fly if not knowing that happen after the mold land on her bare feet. “It is not dangerous yet. And, of course, do you really think I would bring here something I couldn't handle?”

“Anything,” Ginni gave him a look, holding the jar at arm's length. “You could take here anything, especially anything you can't handle. There are too many things you can't handle but you're still into them.” 

“You know what's your problem?”

“What?”

“You tongue. It's too long even for a person you are.”

She knew he was staring at her, examining her broken face. So Ginni turned away, saying, “He's in the kitchen. Let's go.” She waited for Bo to follow her, but he didn't. When Bo touched her nape, Ginni jumped. 

“Back off,” Ginni said. “Back off, don't touch me.”

The blinker on the door flared up, lighting up the narrow hallway. Two people could hardly disperse there, one walking into the bedroom, and the other – into the kitchen. 

“It's me, Ginni,” Bo said in the voice she hadn't heard since she last saw him. It's was so gentle that nearly tender. The markings on his cheeks, on his fingers, his scarred lips, they went so bad with the manner he talked sometimes.

“Just get rid of him and go. That's what I asked.” Ginni barely held back the tears. She remembered the kids they used to be. She knew what's happened, too: they've grown up.

Bo grabbed Steve's arms and dragged him into the bathroom. Bo was thinner than Steve, Ginni wondered how Bo was going to get Steve in the bath, but Bo grabbed him and turned him like a barrel. Bo asked Ginni for a jar, he opened it and shook out at Steve's body.

Ginni was watching Bo's hands. He moved like he was used to dissolving people that way, he acted like he did it thousands of times. His face looked just like in the mine when he said he would go on drilling because he knew it was worth it; or when he said the mine must've been sealed because it turned dangerous.

They Company never listened to the miners, they had the experts of their own. Bo was never one, he didn't have a Civil ID either. He and Ginni, they were born in Colonies. They were not supposed to have Civil Ids and to be listened to like the citizens of Earth Republic.

“This piece of shit won't live long enough to see his funeral,” Bo said, putting the jar on the sink. Jar was marked with Lab's stickers. Ginni knew them, she saw it on the tunnel exterminators backpacks when the miles were sealed.

“Where have you get it?” 

A little piece of mold started to grow when it touched his blood. It grew before all Steve's body wasn't covered with moving mass looked like a living vomit. That's how the miners died, thought Ginni, but when the mold found them, they were injured but alive.

“I have friends.”

“What friends?”

“Useful ones.”

“Do you still work for the Company?”

“Yes and no.”

“What do you mean - “yes and no”?”

“I am with the Independent Labor Union now,” Bo smiled. He had a big mouth, and when he smiled, one can feel like seeing all of his teeth at once. He might not have been pretty, but his smile was, so he worked on the contrast.

“With the ILU” Ginni repeated. “With the ILU that'd never gonna end well. Do you fucking understand that?”

“I fucking understand that the Company is not going to give me anything. I am sick and tired of being nothing and no one. I am sick and tired of having nothing.” Bo leaned on the wall, clasping his hands. “It was you who showed me who I really am, I get the information, analyzed it and make a conclusion. I would thank you, but all my thanks are now working over your husband's body.”

“The Company is legal, and ILU are saboteurs and outlaws,” Ginni said. “ILU will get you into shit and leave there sinking. They are not responsible for their “representative” because they don't have any, they don't even officially exist.”

“Well,” Bo run his fingers around his collar, looking into the mirror over the sink. “I am fed up with doubtful responsibility, questionable one-way obligations and work ID. I am civilian now, I am doing favors. And what are doing you?”

“I work at orbit Security Corps,” Ginni spelled the name with the effort. Her face looked like a plum in the mirror. “Don't even try to make a joke of it. I am Security Officer, Bo. That's why he didn't kill me. He couldn't.”

“I've never touched you with a finger, Genevieve.” Bo said. “Never touched you a fucking finger. If only you stayed...”

“Are you preaching on me?” Ginni snapped. 

“I'm telling you the truth. I would never make you go through hell. You only needed to say yes.” Bo was talking like nothing was over and they still had their chances. The truth was they hadn't any, and Ginni knew that for sure.

They never had a chance because they never had the Civil IDs.

“But I didn't. Because I had my reasons.” Ginni answered persistently, and Bo raised his voice, “What fucking reasons did you have?” 

“I couldn't stop you! No one could. And now you are with ILU. There's no turning back for none of us, Bo! Do you get it?” How stupid he must be to never understand it. Ginni tried to make a living, and Bo decided if he was not able to be a civilian, he'd take the other way which Ginni couldn't follow.

They heard the knocking on the door and silenced. That could be either the Police or the neighbors. The question was who concerned first. Ginni walked into the hallway and pressed her ear to the door. Her video recorder was broken, she couldn't see what's outside.

“Living Block Police. You neighbors reported sounds of the fight,” demanded the voice. 

“No, no, officer, everything is okay. Just a family business.” Ginni explained. She stumbled only once, but it was enough to make the officer asking more.

She knew the protocol and blamed herself: whether the suspect doubted or stumbled, the officer should insist on having more answers to make the situation clear and to take up the lethal weapon protocol or not.

“Due to scan data, this block belongs to mister Steven Wo. May we speak to mister Wo?”

“He is...” Ginni started. She needed a really solid lie to get out of this.

“...in the bathroom...” Bo prompted her in a quiet voice. He drove up to the wall next to Ginni, listening carefully.

“In the bathroom.” Ginni repeated firmly. If the officer took a step into the house, Ginni would be twice as dead as him. She could say she had nothing to lose but her husband's body in the bathroom, overgrown by the mold, but in fact, she had – it was her life she was going to lose.

Her bloody double-damned near-civilian life.

“May mister Wo come out and give us explanations? You are no owner of the place,” officer proceeded. “Due to the protocol, we can accept explanations and confirmation of authority only from the owner.”

“I am his wife. And an Orbit Security Corps Officer.” Ginni could never make her voice as haughty as if she was a civilian, but he made a pretty good attempt.

“We need to speak to mister Wo. Tell mister Wo we are sorry for the inconvenience, but he need to open the door.” The officer was polite but persistent. Those times they went on patrol with security droids, and there was no reason for the officer not to have one right behind Ginni's door.

Ginni and Bo exchanged the looks, and when Bo said, “I am mister Wo. Wait a second, I need to put my bathrobe on. You won't be eager to see me in my natural costume, officer.”

“Audio probe doesn't confirm your voice's sample fitting in with mister Wo. Open the door and walk out the floor with your hands up.” The officer response was immediate, the Earth bitch was waiting for it.

Ginni looked at Bo, her eyes wide open. “Why the fuck you've done it?”

Bo smiled. “You won't survive in jail. I am sorry, you just won't make it.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” Ginni didn't understand. Bo looked somewhere behind her back. She turned away, and Bo hit her in the head. The world turned black, as Ginni fell on the floor, for the second time that day.

Losing her conscious, the last thing Ginni remembered was Bo dragging her into the kitchen, yelling he had a hostage and a dead body. He said that the officer was going to have a dead body more if he didn't get what he want, and what he wanted was to have some fun.


End file.
